Late PM’s wife says ex-President Saakashvili demanded she avoid investigation

The wife of late Prime Minister of Georgia Zurab Zhviania has confirmed her conversation with ex-President Mikheil Saakashvili where she was requested to stay away from the investigation into her husband’s death.

"I had meetings with Saakashvili and each time we discussed the investigation. I would like to sum up our meeting using Misha’s (Mikheil’s) phrase. He told me, ask me for anything but stay away from the investigation,” Zhvania’s wife Nino Kadagidze said at a special press briefing in response to Saakashvili’s interview on Rustavi 2 television last night.

In the interview, Saakashvili said Zhvania’s wife demanded money from him.

· See also: Ex-President Saakashvili’s TV claims alarm late PM’s family 

Kadagidze said the conversation about money was in reference to the head of her late-husband’s personal bodyguard Koba Kharshiladze, who had taken the key and had emptied the safe after Zhviania’s death.

She believed, because the bodyguard had stolen the key and had opened the safe, maybe her husband’s death was caused by his own interest.

On television, Saakshvili said when Zhviania died, his wife and brother "started speaking strange things.”

"I asked his wife to come. She came and I asked her what about she was speaking about when she had seen everything, she was there. She replied that she did not have any pretensions to me but mentioned Zura owned a lot of money, as all politicians did. I replied I did not have any money and asked her to be make it clear about what she was talking about,” Saakashvili said.

In her opinion, the noise was caused to pressure the investigation process of democratization and it was very important for independent forensic experts to prepare their research and present conclusions.

Zhvania died in a suspicious condition in 2005. The body of Raul Usupov, who at the time was the deputy governor of Georgia's Kvemo Kartli region, was also found at the scene.

The investigation claiming the men died of carbon-monoxide poisoning from a faulty heater, was wrong.

The press briefing was also attended by the late Prime Minister’s brother and mother.

At the briefing, the late PM’s brother Giorgi Zhvania reinforced the findings of an FBI’s report, which read the heater was not faulty.

"If it is needed to exhume the body then we agree for international experts to do it,” Zhvania said.

The family also commented on the one-minute photo collage showing the corpses of the late Prime Minister and Usupov, and was leaked on Youtube earlier this month. The montage contained 12 still photos of the bodies that identified a number of possible injuries that could be relevant to the men’s deaths.

Kadagidze said she knew of only one photo within the leaked images.

"When I heard about this photo identifying the injuries on the lip I went to Zurab Adeishvili, (Georgia’s ex-Prosecutor General). He asked me to bring the photos but that photo had vanished,” she said.

· See Also: Government Ministers respond to leaked photos of late PM’s corpse 

The late PM’s mother, Rema Zhvania, addressed society said the politicians and media had to restrain from talking about this case as the investigation was still ongoing.

"Why has it created such fuzz when the investigation is still going, please don’t disturb the investigation,” she said.

"When there is a verdict and if any political party or the private person will have any questions they will have the right to appeal to the Strasbourg Court [the European Court of Human Rights],” the late PM’s mother said.

"It is a terrible suffering for our family, for the children Zura," she said.